Net neutrality has been a hot, hot topic in the last year or two. The issue has been that beloved companies like Comcast and AT&T supposedly want to be able to slow traffic to sites that don't pay them a premium.

One reason the internet is powerful is because people have equal access to all sites. To all content. And that start-ups have just as much chance to grow a viable business as anyone else. They can compete against the big boys because of a level playing field. Slowing their traffic compared to those who can pay for fast traffic isn't exactly censorship ... but it's along those lines. People want their sites fast, and destroying net neutrality means pushing them toward sites with deep pockets.

And what do we think has happened with media, where people have been pushed more and more into the stories told by about 6 worldwide media companies? Outside of the internet, it's hard to find many perspectives outside this very narrow "mainstream." Would the same thing happen with media companies buying up the fast access and therefore most of the world's actual "people" traffic?

But here's another interesting perspective on it. Recently the Net Neutrality movement has been against something called "sponsored data." Generally with a mobile phone plan, you have a certain amount of data you can use before you have to pay for more. But now you have some companies "sponsoring" data. That means if you use their website or service, that won't count toward your data cap. They're doing you a favor, right?

But the Net Neutrality movement is calling foul. Sure, this looks great for the consumer today, but it's breaking net neutrality, they say. So we ought to avoid these offers.

I'm a little torn and would love your input. Here's why: sponsored data is a form of marketing that's been used for years, and to me it seems to generally empower people. "We'll give you this FREE show called Friends, but while you're watching it, you'll see some ads from our sponsors." Well now, we can't have that, can we? Because the companies who have the money to buy ads on these amazing programs are likely to grow. And that won't be fair to businesses that can't afford to advertise.

What???

Here's another example. Coke Zero is promoting itself on TV by asking you to open an app called Shazam and letting the app listen to the commercial. When it hears that commercial, it delivers you a coupon for a free Coke Zero, redeemable at local merchants. So let's see ... they are paying you to use their product. I don't hear Pepsi calling foul.

But now we have companies willing to pay the cost of your data if you'll use their services, and that is somehow a problem? Let's see ... did Verizon slow your data to other websites? No. Did they reduce the data you can pay for? No. They're just letting you use additional data with certain services at no direct cost to you.

No direct cost? Well of course ... paying for data is a cost that these services will have to recoup another way, either by charging you more money for the service or by having more ads. (Uh ... sponsors. "Sponsored Services.") So Netflix might be "free" to use on a mobile service, but it might also bump its service up $1/month to cover that "free" use. In some way, it WILL be paid for by the consumer.

This also means that a start-up, if they can develop what Netflix has developed, could charge $1/month LESS since they're not sponsoring data. Or they can sponsor data. Still seems like a level playing field to me.

I get it. The concern is that eventually you'll only have access to services that pay. But this supposes that mobile phone companies (or Comcast, Dish, etc.) will one day NOT accept you paying for your own data. Where you can visit whatever sites you want. Or that people will one day not be willing to pay for data in order to visit the sites they want.

I don't see that day coming soon. Do you? As long as we're not somehow penalized for the data we buy (i.e., slower speeds than what companies can buy) so we can browse all websites equally, this seems like standard business practice to me. Is it a bad one? I'd love your thoughts.

There's a lot of ranting these days on the increasing wealth gap -- the growing financial difference between the rich and poor. And it seems to me that this drives a lot of the political rhetoric between the left and right. One side of the argument wants to tax the wealthy more and distribute to those in need (as defined by politicians of course). One side of the argument feels that this is robbery, and that the wealthy are the ones who create jobs. They shouldn't be punished.

In my mind, the rhetoric fails to separate the "entrepreneurially" wealthy from the criminally wealthy, and without this separation, it's admittedly hard to come to an agreement. And see, the same politicians who argue over tax rates and redistribution of wealth for half the day spend the other half of the day being influenced by special interests that many times are the cause of criminal wealth -- the benefit of certain groups at the expense of others.

If Americans would come together and focus on the problem of special interests -- of politicians who believe in supporting some of the people rather than all of the people -- then just maybe we could start to curb the problem of criminal wealth, and maybe honest wealth would stop being demonized.

There are an awful lot of people who would love to be wealthy some day, but today they complain about outrageous wealth. So really ... are they against people succeeding? Or are they against an unfair playing field? I know what I'm against. And if we leveled that field in a way that allowed many more people to get jobs and pay the bills, maybe we wouldn't have to talk so much about raising tax rates on the wealthy and spilling that over to other people.

I'm not a fan of government redistribution, but it also becomes necessary when that very government creates a problem of people so poor they cannot pay for honest necessities. And of course this benefits the politicians themselves not only because they retain wealth and power, but because they continue to be "needed" for the distribution of wealth to take place. I say, let's stop their support of criminal wealth and see what sorts itself out. Cause rather than symptom.

Of course I don't pretend that any political problem is easy to solve. Special interests are, in the end, just voices for groups of people, and they should be allowed to speak. And if you can do something to keep their voices while eliminating the fraud they inject into the system, I'm not saying the whole wealth problem would be solved. But I believe it would create a major shift, and that we would start to see improvements. And right now, given the momentum, that would be a great first step that, we hope, would then show us the next great step to take.

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